Slowly, slowly the vote counting is drawing to a close. It seems as if FRETILIN might have secured the greatest number of votes but without an outright majority, it may be forced to go into the position as the opposition as a coalition led by Xanana Gusmaoa's CNRT, snatches power. CNRT is promising to modernise Timor Leste with its posters filled with gleaming 1st world skyscrapers and an airport whose facade rivals that of JFK!!! The voters have drifted away from the ruling party - the party who emerged from the resistance movement but who has been unable to show the necessary ability to start Timor Leste down the path of development. Therein lies a salutary notice for similar regimes around the globe - most notably my own. Eventually the people will require some return on their investment of faith in you....
But so too the political landscape in Timor Leste shifts yet again with implications for the Labour ministry's Youth Employment Action Plan.. No doubt the Secretary of State for Youth and Sport whom I met will have vacated his office by Monday - he is too prominent a FRETILIN person to remain in the position. Hopefully his successor will build on what is good and that has been put in place over the past 2 years rather than undoing everything and taking another dilatory 2 years to start any sort of implementation. The Minister of Labour is probably another too prominent member of FRETILIN to leave in place. More's the pity because his has been a very active ministry - one that has been prepared to work - even through the crisis periods.
And so if this project with the MAGs takes off, if, when the funding is approved, new political relationships will have to be forged, a new vision jointly created and new opportunities exploited to help Timor Leste on the road to peace and development.....
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